Lego - Stop Production of Friends Line for Girls

Lego Friends line for girls promotes damaging gender stereotypes and limits creativity and healthy role development.

Please sign this petition to STOP Lego from making and marketing toys filled with stereotypes and promoting body dissatisfaction. Say No to the new "Friends" line "for girls."

INTERESTING AD ABOVE CIRCA 1981 - text reads:

Have you ever seen anything like it? Not just what she's made, but how proud it made her. Its a look you'll see whenever children build something all by themselves. No matter what they created.

- Younger children build for fun...

- Older children build for Realism. Universal Building Sets for Children ages 7 - 12 have more detailed pieces like gears, rotors, and treaded tires for more realistic building. One set even has a motor.

Lego Universal Building Sets will help your children discover something very, very special themselves.

(NOTHING about gender or the color pink... & she could build it herself! )

We are not against pink or girls gravitating towards pink (if thats what they choose). What we are against is Lego dictating what girls should gravitate towards (do you realize you dont even have to build this line, its all done for you)! Where the problem lies is when we allow toymakers to decide what girls should do, think, be and look like. Lego has always stood for being creative, smart, and imaginative for both sexes non gender specific. And NOT all girls gravitate towards pink. As little Riley a 4yo suggested, “Why do all the girls have to buy princesses? Some girls like superheroes. Some girls like princesses.” And as many have suggested, "LEGO already has a product for girls. It's called LEGO." Apparently in the last decade, unfortunately, lego has been marketing more and more to boys only, in fact their whole line could only be found on the "boys" aisles. Is it possible that the Marketers maybe just missed their mark? Tell Lego that girls have their own wonderful, creative imaginations and don't need their help!

Letter to

Lego

I just signed the following petition addressed to: Lego.

----------------Stop Production of Friends Girl Line

Lego Friends line for girls promotes damaging gender stereotypes and limits creativity and healthy role development.

Please read the Letter to Lego for more details below.

**************January 11, 2012

LEGO Systems Inc

555 Taylor RoadP.O. Box 1138Enfield, CT 06083-1138

Dear LEGO:

LEGO used to stand out as an exceptional toy maker who stood apart from the other shameless and reckless manufacturers who make and market gender stereotypic toys devoid of imagination and skill building. Your “Friends” line for “girls” challenges this reputation and puts both professionals and parents on alert.

We are horrified and outraged to see how the “Friends” line for girls promotes damaging gender stereotypes and limits creativity and healthy role development.

For starters presenting slimmer, more fashion oriented LEGO people for girls falls right into the pervasive cultural messages for them to focus solely on their appearance and being thin. Your Fashion Design Workshop and Butterfly Beauty Shop also convey the message of focusing on appearance, and promotes negativity, as evidenced by your advertisements for this line, such as saying that [it] is a place where girls can “get primped and pretty” and “gossip out on the bench.” Are you serious?

Research and experience tell us that encouraging girls to focus on appearance and thinness contributes to their belief that external validation is more important than internal validation. That is, being thin and pretty is more important than who you are or what you can do. The internalization of these values leads to body dissatisfaction and to disordered eating, which may lead to full blown eating disorders.

Lego - save your reputation and remove or modify this new “Friends” line. We for sure are going to get the word out:

Don’t buy the new LEGO “Friends” line. It will make you feel bad about yourself and others……with friends like that who needs enemies.